If there is a reason to criticize this bill, it is that it’s far too lenient. All welfare recipients should be drug tested–particularly those with prior drug convictions. Pittman’s bill would only test the prior conviction crowd, and then give them a warning the first time they tested positive!

From al.com: “Convicted tree poisoner Harvey Updyke Jr. wants an Elmore County court to slash his monthly restitution payments to Auburn University by 90 percent.

“In a motion filed this week in Elmore County Circuit Court, Updyke’s attorney requested the court reduce his monthly payment from $500 to $50.”

If Updyke gets his way, it will take him 1,300 years to pay his debt off. The good news is, the judge doesn’t seem to be sympathetic. The bad news is, as I calculate things, Updyke won’t be able to pay his restitution even if things stay the same.

The story from Breitbart quotes the actor as saying in a Playboy interview that when he watches “a guy [on screen] I know is a big Republican, part of me thinks, I probably wouldn’t like this person if I met him, or we would have different opinions. That s*#! fogs the mind when you should be paying attention and be swept into the illusion.”

This story from The Hill can’t pass without comment. It begins, “House Republicans say they’re proud of their 2013 campaign to stymie President Obama’s regulatory agenda, even as Congress comes under fire for one of its least productive years.

“The bitterly divided Congress will pass fewer laws in 2013 than any year in modern history. As a result of the gridlock, President Obama has turned to his administration’s regulatory authority in pursuit of key policy goals, including efforts to tackle gun violence and climate change.”

As you read the whole thing, keep in mind that gridlock is good, Congress has the Constitutional prerogative to pass laws or not, and President Obama doesn’t have the authority to regulate things simply because Congress doesn’t pass them.

There are numerous tributes out there today, but this is a bit of comic relief–and it brilliantly puts the failure of Obamacare in perspective:

“We reduced Japan to a pile of radioactive smoking rubble in 1,346 days. It’s now Day 1,355 and, despite promises to do likewise to the healthcare system, they’re still working on it. The FDR administration built almost a hundred working aircraft carriers faster than the Obama administration has managed to build one working website.”

“If the US labor market were back at pre-Great Recession levels, this would have been a pretty decent employment report,” begins James Pethokoukis in his latest blog at The American Enterprise Institute.

From The Washington Times: “When conservative organizations claimed that they were targeted by the IRS, the one-third or so of the nation who still trust this president may actually question whether the dots connect to prove it. But what if two people speak out against Obamacare, working together publicly on an Obamacare-related problem, and then receive threatening letters from the IRS — on the same day?”

So opines Syahredhan Johan at The Star Online. The best part of the piece is, “The problem for Muslims in Angola is that according to Angolan laws, a religious group must have 100,000 members and must be present in 12 out of the 18 provinces. There are only about 90,000 Muslims in Angola out of a population of 18 million people, according to a report. As they failed to meet this requirement, Muslim religious groups are not recognised by Angola laws.”

Byron York’s piece at The Washington Examiner today begins, “In April, Real Clear Politics’ average of polls showed that 47 percent of Americans opposed Obamacare, while 41 percent supported it — a 6-percentage-point edge for opponents of the president’s health care law, which at the time was still months away from implementation.

“The latest average of polls, less than two months into the law’s rollout, shows 57 percent opposing Obamacare, with 38 percent supporting — an enormous 19-point gap between opponents and supporters.”

Those are the numbers; read the whole thing to ascertain their ramifications.

Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Florida at age sixty-something, and Showtime had a great special cataloging her journey and determination. I was channel surfing today after walking the dog and came across it. It was inspiring. She demonstrated that accomplishing one’s dream is imminently possible irrespective of roadblocks.

The Showtime special didn’t focus on her sexual preference–in fact, unless I missed it while getting a cup of coffee, it wasn’t mentioned. If you Google her, though the message you’ll take away is that she’s a gay swimmer.

The message should be that one can succeed, period, if he or she is strong mentally. Nyad is a role model, not because of who her “partner” is, but because she accomplished what she wanted to. She proves that all of us, with hard work, can realize our dreams.

The mainstream press misses that, of course, because it celebrates all things non-conservative, and it looks for victims.

She isn’t a victim. She was determined to beat the odds, and she did. The rest of us can as well. The economy, for instance, may be challenging, just as the current in the ocean was for Ms. Nyad, but the human mind can overcome any roadblock.